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LETTEE 



W. E. CHANNING, D. D 



ON THE SUBJECT OF THE 



ABUSE OF THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES 



IN THE 



ISLAND OF CUBA 



AND THE 



ADVANTAGE TAKEN OF ITS PROTECTION 



IN PROMOTING THE 



SLAVE TRADE. 



By R. R. MADDEN, 

Author of " Travels in the West Indies," and « Infirmities of Men of Genius. 



BOSTON, 
WILLIAM D. TICKNOR, 

Corner of Washington and School Streets. 

1839. 



LETTER 



TO 



W. E. CHANNING, D. D. 



ON THE SUBJECT OF THE 



ABUSE OF THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES 



IN THE 



ISLAND OF CUBA, 

AND THE 

ADVANTAGE TAKEN OF ITS PROTECTION 

IN PROMOTING THE 

SLAVE TRADE. 



By R. R. MADDEN, 

Author of " Travels in the West Indies," and » Infirmities of Men of Genius." 



BOSTON, 
WILLIAM D. TICKNOR, 

Corner of Washington and School Streets. 

1839. 



6 ^ 



I #^ Of 



BUTTS, PRINTER, 2 SCHOOL, STREET. 



SOURCE TTNKN07/N 



LETTER 



My dear Sir : — 

The subject of this letter is one of such importance, the 
necessity for entering on it so urgent, and the task of performing it so 
painful, that, were it possible to distinguish men from measures, and 
to serve the cause of truth and justice without wounding the feelings 
of individuals, however adverse to both, I would sit down to address 
you with more alacrity, and would hope to attain my object without 
exciting a suspicion that the conduct of an unpopular man has been 
mistaken or misrepresented by me. 

Feeling strongly as I do on the subject of this letter, perhaps I may 
express myself strongly, and I fear it might be harshly, were I less fully 
impressed with the calmness of that mental composure, that patient 
spirit of philosophical research, — that clear, cold, pellucid expression 
of well examined thoughts, and moderated opinions, which so eminent- 
ly characterize your judgments, and distinguish the communication of 
your sentiments. Were it otherwise, I might find it difficult, 1 con- 
fess, to restrain my feelings, and yet have to speak of great wrongs 
committed with impunity against humanity. As it is, I hope in ad- 
dressing myself to your reason, to execute my task, to direct your at- 
tention to that scandalous abuse of the Hag of your country, which has 
been flagrantly connived at by the Consul of the United States in 
Cuba, and the result of which has been to give a new impetus to the 
illeo-al traffic in human beings, and to render it impossible for the efforts 
of the British Government for the suppression of this traffic, to be car- 
ried into successful execution. 



This is the third time I have had the pleasure of visiting America. 
It has been my good fortune to have been permitted to converse freely 
and to communicate even familiarly, on the subject of this communica- 
tion, with many of the great and good men of this country, of all par- 
ties, of all sects, Northerners and Southerners, and finding greatness 
of mind and goodness of heart limited to no particular latitudes, I 
have inquired of all, what interest had the United States in promoting 
the desolation of Africa by affording the inhuman trade in slaves the 
protection of her flag 1 And there has been little or any essential differ- 
ence in the answers 1 have received. Let me ask you, my dear sir, 
this same question ; and in the name of truth and justice, on behalf of 
the unfortunate people of Africa, and for the sake of the honor of that 
flag which will owe its first stain to the infamy of this unhallowed traf- 
fic, without the promptest interposition, let me conjure you to give to 
this question a reply prompt and loud, that will go through the land, 
arrest attention at Washington, and find its way to the Havana not 
only as the voice of the highest wisdom of the country, and moreover of 
public opinion, but as the stern accents of authority that will speak to 
a functionary who has betrayed his trust, in the language of rebuke, 
" henceforth be thou no officer of mine." I am well assured your an- 
swer to that question will be the echo of the sentiments that hitherto I 
have heard here in reply to it. But, perhaps, these sentiments will 
show a farther view of the bearings of the question, and a deeper un- 
derstanding of the dangers which are involved in the subject of it. 
Perhaps your reply to this question would embrace topics of interest to 
republics beyond your own. Perhaps it would appear to you that the 
continuance and extension of this felonious trade, was planned and 
promoted by men who looked even beyond the advantages of their 
present gains. Perhaps the thought might flash across your mind, that 
the Texian system of conquest, by means of colonization, was consid- 
ered applicable to Cuba, as well as to portions of the Mexican domin- 
ions, and that the future progress of Texian conquest, and the decline 
and ultimate fall of the South American republics, were supposed to 
have rendered it desirable, to prevent the suppression of a trade which 
was destined to extend the influence of slavery, to spread its empire 
over the vast regions of South America, and under the protection of 
its tutelary flag, to continue to Cuba and Porto Rico a traffic, which, 
in the language of Mr. Trist, "to all practical purposes has become 
hallowed in all eyes here." 

Perhaps, sir, you might not be deterred by the smile of public incre- 



dulity, or the sneer of political contempt, from expressing the opinion 
that the continuance of the slave-trade was a very material ingredient 
in the policy of those political desperadoes, who, to counteract the 
power and influence of the Northern States, are prepared to extend 
the Southern boundary, and to secure the permanence, and to promote 
the realization of the benefits to humanity conveyed in the opinion 
solemnly expressed by Mr. Trist, when he declared that he " entertains 
a deliberate and oft revolved douht, whether considered merely in itself, 
the slave-trade be not a positive benefit to its supposed victims." 

Perhaps, sir, on the perusal of this letter, you might imagine there 
was reason to believe such a conspiracy against the people of Africa 
and the South American territories was in existence, and was acted 
on in Cuba; and the final accomplishment of its promised " benefits," 
was reserved for the completion of the Texian policy both in the Span- 
ish Islands and on the Main. 

Perhaps you might be induced to believe that wild as this scheme 
may seem to be, it is not impracticable in the hands of bad, bold men, 
whose physical and mental energies are so vastly superior to those of 
the people they settle down amongst, with the strong purpose of dis- 
possessing, when the plot is matured, and the mask of colonial alle- 
giance may be successfully thrown off. 

These are considerations which, in all probability, would be ponder- 
ed over well and long in the depths of thought like yours, before I re- 
ceived a reply. But whatever that reply might be, I am greatly mis- 
taken if the British Government and the people of Great Britain and 
America, or that portion, at least, of the intelligence and integrity of 
both countries that goes under that name, would not receive it with 
respect, examine it with attention, and confide in the justice of its 
conclusions. 

These conclusions would be grounded, I presume, on the following 
assumptions : — 

1. That the Spanish slave-trade has gradually and steadily increas- 
ed from the year 1820 to the present year ; and the importations have 
been augmented from 15,000 to 25,000 per annum. 

2. That the great amount of American capital invested in slave 
property in the island of Cuba, and the energy with which the new 
American settlers have entered on the cultivation of new land, (the 
establishment of new American plantations averaging during the last 
three years, twenty a year,) have largely contributed to give an impe- 
tus to the trade, which has been fatal to the efforts made for its sup- 
pression. 



6 

t 

3. That the recent treaty of 1835, between Spain and England, for 
its suppression, has been successfully evaded by the practice adopted 
of shipping the stores for the slave-trade on board American vessels at 
the Havana. 

4. That American vessels are suffered to proceed with the stores to 
Africa, and even to return to the Island of Cuba with slaves, under 
the Portuguese flag, with the full knowledge of the Consul of the Uni- 
ted States. 

5. That all the vessels in the Spanish slave-trade, are built in 
America, chiefly in Baltimore ; and are publicly sold for the slave- 
trade in the Havana, by the foreign merchants. 

6. That fraudulent transfers of the papers are constantly made, of 
vessels employed or destined for this trade. 

7. That slaves under fictitious titles, described in fraudulent de- 
clarations as free, indented laborers, and duly attested by the Consul 
of the United States, have been exported from Havana to Texas. 

8. That within the last two years and a half, two vessels have been 
detected landing slaves in the United States. One of which, the Em- 
peror, was taken by an American vessel of war and sent to Pensacola 
for trial ; and on her release, by one of these illegal transfers became 
Portuguese, and was subsequently taken about June last, by a British 
cruiser, under the name of Sierra del Pilar. 

9. That the slave-trade of Cuba for the last two years has been 
carried on under the protection of the Portuguese and American 
flags. 

10. That the Spanish flag during that period, with one or two ex- 
ceptions, fell into complete disuse. 

11. That on the dismissal from office of the notorious slave-trader 
Fernandez, the Portuguese consul, Mr. Trist became the acting con- 
sul for that nation, 

12. That the use and abuse of these two flags were of necessity 
known to Mr. N. P. Trist, and were connived at by him. 

Perhaps before entering into these particulars, I should have in- 
formed you that Mr. N. P. Trist is the gentleman who fills the office 
of Consul General of the United States at the Havana. That he 
has gained for himself within the last three or four years, a consid- 
erable degree of unenviable notoriety, and for his office, unfortu- 
nately, an amount of obloquy highly prejudicial to its high character, 
by the arrogance of his conduct, the neglect of his duties, and lastly, 
by the scandalous protection he has afforded to the slave-trade, and 



the open predilection he has recently avowed, and officially recorded, 
for the interests of that nefarious traffic. 

Of late, he has taken occasion twice, in official communications, to 
bestow a vast quantity of abuse on the British members of the Com- 
mission for the suppression of the slave-trade ; and not only the pres- 
ent members of it, but their several predecessors ; and moreover the 
most unmeasured reproach it is possible to conceive, on the British 
Government. But what is most likely to excite the anger of the folks 
of the old country, this poor man has bestowed " his pity " on a very 
large portion of the people of England. And for what calamity, for- 
sooth? — why, for their abhorrence of the slave-trade: because, in the 
words of Mr. Trist, they waste their energies on a cause that is " a 
delusion," practised on them by men who are" self-seekers," "deceiv- 
ers," "theatrical exhibitors," " fanatics," and "impostors;" for all of 
whom, his feelings, he declares, are those of "disgust and indigna- 
tion." 

The " disgust " of Mr. Trist is certainly sufficiently loathsome 
without the insult of his " pity," and either of them less patiently to 
be endured than his " indignation." 

There is some allowance, however, to be made for the latter ; a la- 
tent feeling of respect for the interests of the " market," and of regret 
for the loss of a property in Cuba, which must have made him a fre- 
quenter of it, had he been able to have retained his estate there, no 
doubt have much to do with the " indignation " of the discomfited 
planter. Mr. Trist had scarcely entered on his official duties, when 
he purchased an estate in Cuba. Every one conversant with slavery 
in that island, knows that the slave population is not kept up by the 
increase on the plantations. On sugar properties, that there is in 
fact no increase at all, and that it is necessary under the present sys- 
tem of management, to have recourse to the slave market, to make 
up for the annua] decrease, by the purchase of newly imported slaves 
from Africa. So that one of the first acts of this officer was to place 
himself in a condition, which imposed on him the necessity of par- 
ticipating in a crime, which the laws of his country pronounce Piracy, 
and punish with the penalty of Death. 

Fortunately for his office, Mr. Trist became unable to meet the 
engagements into which he had entered, when the period came round 
for the payment for this estate. Law proceedings were commenced 
against him, and he was compelled to shelter himself under the privi- 
leges of his office, and the special protection of the Captain General, 



8 

to avoid the ruinous consequences of a legal prosecution in a Spanish 
court. Mr. Trist was compelled to give up his estate, — his poverty, 
but not his will, consented to the sacrifice. 

Driven from the pleasing exercise of power as a Cubian planter, 
he turned to the prospect of the emoluments of office ; and the pro- 
tection of the slave-trade opened a new field for speculation. In the 
year 1836, the published correspondence of the Commissioners with 
the British Government, throws some light on the proceedings of Mr. 
Trist, during the preceding year, with respect to the countenance 
given by that person to the slave-trade, then carrying on between 
Texas and the island of Cuba. This trade in the latter part of 1835, 
had been carried on by American citizens to a considerable extent. 
The attention of the Commissioners was at length called to these 
scandalous proceedings. A new plan was devised to evade their vigi- 
lance. The American Consul, when a shipment was to be made, 
had declarations made before him, by the Captains of the American 
vessels employed in transporting the bozal negroes from this port, 
stating that these persons were free indented laborers, and this de- 
claration was duly attested by Mr. Trist. In plain terms, the signature 
of the American Consul at the Havana was appended to these fraud- 
ulent documents. He, Mr. Trist, well knowing that the said free 
indented laborers, were sent to Texas to be sold there, by dealers 
established in Cuba for the sole purpose of this traffic. 

The Commissioners' knowledge of these matters, in all probability, 
was made known at Washington, for on the 23d of February, 1S36, 
the following notice was posted up in the American consulate at the 
Havana. 

" It being understood that several American vessels have lately 
been chartered for the transportation of Africans, or black men, from 
this Island to Texas, Notice is hereby given to American ship-mas- 
ters, and to all others, that any and every such proceeding, is in di- 
rect violation of the laws of the United States. In no case whatever, 
is it lawful for any American vessel to carry a slave, or colored per- 
son held to service or labor, except only in going from one port in 
the United States to another. 

"Except as just stated, no American vessel can lawfully sail with 
any black or colored person whatever, unless such black or colored 
person, be really and truly, to all intents and purposes, free. To 
take, or have on board, any negro or colored person whatever, who 



may be in any way held to service or labor, no matter whether such 
colored person be called by tbe name of apprentice, or any other, is 
strictly forbidden by law. The law is just as certainly violated in 
carrying Africans, no matter under what name, from this island to 
Texas, as in bringing Africans from any part of their own coast, to 
this island. In any case of the violation of the law, the vessel and 
cargo are sure to be condemned, if seized while on the voyage to 
Texas, or elsewhere, with any such colored person on board, or if 
prosecuted after her return to the United States, and the master and 
every person employed in said vessel, are moreover, subject to the 
heaviest penalties; tbe least of which is fine and imprisonment for 
three years, and in some cases amounting to death." 

" Consulate of the United States, 

" Havana, February 23, 1836." 

Now, the first question is, what evidence is there of Mr. Trist 
having given his signature to the fraudulent declarations of the cap- 
tains of the slave carrying vessels? The best evidence in such a 
case, Mr. Trist's own official acknowledgment of the fact ! In his 
last communication to tbe Commissioners, dated the 8th of July, 
1839, in referring to this subject, he attempts to prove that Mr. Mac- 
leay, the Chief Commissioner, had stated that which was not true, 
namely, that he had left it to be understood that he, Mr. Trist, was 
the person who made the declaration, whereas he was only the attest- 
er of the declaration. It happens that Mr. Macleay had stated noth- 
ing of the kind. But fortunately for truth, in the anger of Mr. Trist, 
at the detection of the Texian slave-trade, to which he had lent the 
influence of his official character, he plainly, and directly, admits that 
he did sign the declarations, in these cases of Texian exportations 
of negroes, which were made before him ; and moreover that the 
negroes carried from this port to Texas, went under the denomina- 
tion of apprenticed laborers. 

In his Consular Notice he distinctly states, that 

" No vessel can lawfully sail with any black or colored person 
whatever, unless such black or colored person be really and truly, to 
all intents and purposes, free." Nay more, that if such persons " are 
held in any way to service or labor, no matter whether such colored 
person be called by the name of apprentice, or any other, it is strictly 
forbidden by law." 

May I ask Mr. Trist, why then he suffered these negroes, whom 
2 



10 

he acknowledges were represented in the declaration as " indented 
laborers," and consequently held to "service" and " labor," to be 
carried away illegally ; and why he gave the sanction of his official 
signature to documents which he knew were " in direct violation of 
the laws of the United States?" Why did he, the Consul of the Uni- 
ted States, permit the persons who made these declarations, — sub- 
jects of America, — to perpetrate crime which involved the penalty 
of " fine and imprisonment," " seizure " of the vessel thus employed, 
and "confiscation" of the property of his fellow-citizens? Why 
did he not refuse his signature proceedings which he denounces 
the illegality of, after they have been carried into effect with so dread- 
ful a penalty to be incurred by their commission; " in some cases, ' 
(to use Mr. Trist's own words) amounting " to death." 

The interruption of the Texian slave-trade, by the publicity given 
to the proceedings of Mr. Trist, on the part of the Commissioners, 
was the first cause of the "indignation" of Mr. Trist. He found no 
public occasion for giving vent to it, however, till after the departure 
of Mr. Macleay. The new Commissioners having begged to call 
the attention of Mr. Trist to a flagrant case of slave-dealing, carried 
on with open effrontery under the American flag, the indignant Con- 
sul sent back to the Commissioners their official communication, de- 
clining to take any steps, or to receive any information on the subject 
of their letter. In the meantime, those Commissioners having been 
succeeded by others, another case of slave dealing under the Ameri- 
can flag, rendered it necessary to call Mr. Trist's attention again to 
this new violation of the laws, and the communication was made to 
him by letter on the 8th of January, 1839, of the present year. This 
letter was couched in courteous terms. The information was simply 
given to him, that a vessel, named " the Venus," then in the harbor, 
had recently arrived from Africa with a cargo of 8G0 slaves, which 
she had taken in under the protection of the American flag. That 
she had sailed from the Havana four months previously under the 
American flag, and had returned with her cargo of slaves under the 
Portuguese flag. That on the coast of Africa a British cruiser had 
visited her, and desisted from capturing her because she was under 
the American flag; and, finally, expressing a hope that he would take, 
such steps as the case demanded, and regretting to have to state that 
the Commissioners had reason to know, that a considerable number 
of American subjects were engaged in this unlawful traffic. 

On the former occasion of a similar communication, this function- 



11 

ary had expended his " indignation " in a short and simple act of 
vulgar insult ; he returned the Commissioners the letter they addressed 
to him. The rudeness here was congenial to his character, and the 
vulgarity of the mode of evincing his displeasure bore testimony to 
the strength of his animosity to the views of the British government, 
with respect to a traffic which the laws of his own country denounce 
as Piracy. 

To the communication of the 8th of January, 18-39, Mr. Trist 
replied in a letter of sixteen foolscap pages. His " indignation " had 
taken a new form of outbreak, and if its intensity is to^be judged of 
by its expansiveness and extension in the shape of words, too high any 
opinion cannot be formed of its virulence. In a strain of the mos°t vio- 
lent invective, levelled discursively at the Commission for the Sup- 
pression of the Slave-trade, the British government, the British people, 
the deluded victims of certain "deceivers," "self-seekers," practises 
of theatrical exhibitions, and other kinds of public impostors, the 
Consul delivers himself of a great amount of wrath and rigmarole, 
in reply to a communication that certainly required some ingenuity 
to find any thing offensive in it to his official character, and which it 
was impossible to assert contained any thing contrary to truth. The 
two statements made in it respectfully to him were, namely theee, 
that the slave-ship "Venus," had sailed from Havana under American 
colors, taken in her slaves under the same flag, and had just landed 
her cargo under the Portuguese; the other, that the Commissioners 
had reason to know that a number of American citizens were en- 
gaged in this unlawful traffic. This lengthy epistle designedly avoids 
entering into the question of this scandalous abuse of the American 
flag, for very obvious reasons. One of which it is alone necessary to 
state. The entire slave-trade of the island of Cuba was then posing 
through the identical hands of N. P. Trist, the Consul General o^f 
the United States at the Havana, inasmuch as the whole illegal traffic 
was then carried on fraudulently and scandalously under the protec- 
tion of the American and Portuguese flags; and Mr. Trist was the 
Consul General of the one country, and the acting Consul of the 
other, from the period of the dismissal of the notorious slave-trade 
Portuguese Consul, Mr. Fernandez. Now the papers of the slave- 
trading vessels of both countries necessarily passed through his 
hands. It was incumbent on him to see that they were neither°fraud- 
ulent nor fictitious. But Mr. Trist felt the only incumbency in 
question, was one by no means onerous or disagreeable, that of re- 




12 

ceiving the fees of his office, and making the most of the precarious 
tenure of his post. 

However, in his long ramhling reply to the Commissioners, wherein 
all kinds of subjects, et quctdam alia, wholly foreign to their com- 
munication, are treated in a style of consular diplomacy peculiar to 
Mr. Trist, he concludes this official manifestation of solemn nonsense, 
by reminding one of the Commissioners that he had been brought up 
in the Temple, and then calls on him for evidence of the facts stated 
in the letter ; plainly intimating that legal evidence was recpiired, he 
well knowing that no such evidence could be produced with safety 
j^TTfe in any Spanish court. 

is Jatest official communication to the Commissioners, bearing 
'the date of the 8th of July last, was received by these gentlemen on 
the 3 1st of August. It purports to be a reply to a note of theirs 
dated January 10th, 1839, informing him that the Commissioners 
were instructed by Viscount Palmerston, in reference to Mr. Trist's 
letter on the subject of the " Venus," to acquaint him, that although 
the government of the United States had declined entering into any 
specific treaty on the subject of the slave-trade, the two governments 
were entitled by the treaty of Ghent, to afford one another any informa- 
tion that either might obtain, and might deem useful to the efforts 
made for the suppression of the slave-trade ; and that it was the duty 
of the Commissioners to afford any useful information of this kind 
to Mr. Trist in a becoming manner, as the officer of a government 
in amity with theirs, and on a subject which both nations concurred 
in, as to the guilt of the crime, and the legal penalty of it ; and fur- 
ther, that the Commissioners would be very glad to receive any simi- 
lar information from Mr. Trist ; and particularly in respect to British 
subjects supplying the shackles and fabrics for this trade, he, Mr. 
Trist, having stated in his former letter that such British manufactured 
articles and goods were regularly imported at the Havana, for the 
African slave-trade. 

To this brief communication, couched in as courteous language 
as the former, Mr. Trist replied in a letter which occupied him in 
the composition of it from the 8th of July to the 31st of August, and 
this official letter consisted of two hundred and seventy-six pages. 

To say that this production is one long tissue of abuse, vitupera- 
tion, threats, defiance, and denunciation against the British govern- 
ment, the policy, patronage, views, and objects of its ministers, the 



13 

various members of the Commission, their zeal, enthusiasm, and\ 
activity, under a variety of hard names, is to say but little. ^ 

The invective is occasionally enlivened by Mr. Trist's opinion of \ 
things in general, but of the slave-trade in particular ; this he has \ 
kindly taken under his protection. Jealous in the extreme of the i 
reputation, and above all, of the profits of his foul protegee, he under- 
takes the arduous task of white-washing the strumpet's character, 
and as he warms in her defence, he absolutely revels in the guilt of 
her polluted bed. There is not a blot upon her fame that is not a 
beauty in his eyes ; nor a blood stain on her hands that has not for 
him an agreeable association of idea : for each one "speaks" (in 
Pistol's vein) " of Africa and golden joys." Verily, the root that takes 
the reason prisoner, and the sin that sears the conscience, likewise 
have had to do with the arts of the mercenary wanton. In the words 
of the wise man we have the beginning and the end of her allure- 
ments. " And behold a woman meeteth him in harlot's attire, pre- 
pared to deceive souls, talkative and wandering. And catching the 
man she keepeth him, and with an impudent face flattereth, saying: 
I vowed victims for prosperity this day ; I have paid my vows. She 
entangled him with many words, and drew him away with the flattery 
of her lips. Immediately he followeth her as an ox led to the slaugh- 
ter, and as a lamb playing the wanton, and not knoiving that he is 
drawn like a fool to bonds. For she hath cast down many wounded, 
and the strongest have been slain by her. Her house is the way to 
hell, reaching even to the innermost chambers of death." Such is 
the harlot that Mr. Trist has taken to his bosom ; such are slave-trade 
seductions, leading its victim by easy stages from crime to crime, till 
at length he becomes so enamoured of guilt that he wonders how all 
the world does not dally with it as he does himself. 

In this lamentable frame of mind, Mr. Trist in his late production, 
sets no limits to his fury when he begins the contest against the cause 
of humanity, and actually suggests the assassination of the Commis- 
sioners, for no other reason but their hostility to the interests of this 
traffic ! 

Of the existence of the Commissioners at the Havana in the exer- 
cise of these functions, for the suppression of the slave-trade, Mr. 
Trist says in his recent official communication of two hundred and 
seventy-six pages, " The result is the re-awaking of the old guerrilla 
spirit ; that spirit, which when their national independence was suffering 
at the hands of Napoleon, was known by the French soldier to be 



) 



14 

J near when he saw his comrade drop with the knife-handle projecting 

I from his chest, which noiseless and unseen, mowed a path for the 

I angel of death through those serried ranks, in countless efforts to pene- 

I trate and to scatter which, the mameluke whirlwind had ineffectually 

I spent itself." — Page 43. 

He reminds the Commissioners of " the Bowie knife," of which he 
says these gentlemen " have perhaps read;" and after condemning 
the use of it, he goes on to say, " but if this Bowie knife were to be- 
come an object of philanthropic zeal in yours or any other foreign 
country, and circumstances should be such as to impart to your gov- 
ernment the wish and the power to interfere with ours in regard to 
this object of my abhorrence, to dictate a law for its extirpation, and 
to take a hand in its execution, that abhorrence would be laid aside, 
never again to occupy my thoughts, until your law and your in- 
terference had been driven into the sea; and necessary to the ac- 
complishment of this, every reaping hook should be beat into a Boicie 
knife, and every maiden in the land should be taught to handle it. — 
Page 44. 

" He looks forward to the time with heartfelt pleasure when the peo- 
ple of England will be free. When the House of Lords shall exist 
only upon the page of history, and a real representative shall have the 
place of that detestable simulacrum by which in their own land they 
have been plundered." — Page 45. 

He solemnly declares, " To all practical purposes, the slave-trade 
as become hallowed in all eyes here." He looks forward to the time 

when Great Britain quietly basking in the blessed light of democra- 
cy, under institutions modelled after ours, shall unite in a hymn to the 
daughter land that first taught the world how to reconcile liberty with 
law — the might of an empire nation with the freedom of a village re- 
public."— Page 49. 

In speaking of his conversion to slave-trade doctrines ; — " My own 
earliest recollection of a print is, of that celebrated section of a slave 
ship, constituting, if I recollect right, the frontispiece to one of Wil- 
berforce's publications. There was something in it which excited my 
curiosity, and this was, by my grandmother, diverted from the engra- 
ving, which necessarily remained a puzzle to me, to the trade itself, 
with the horrors of which my infant mind was filled, and for which a 
hatred was inspired, correspondent to that which animated the bosom 
of my instructress, the most remarkably generous and benevolent per- 
son in a very large circle of acquaintance. Nor did my subsequent 



15 



education at all disturb this first impression. The feeling grew with 
my growth, and strengthened with my strength. My preparation 
therefore in coming to this country, had not been of a character 
to predispose me to view the slave-trade with favor, Jand to form 
upon what 1 saw, a judgment conflicting withjthat which had been 
the OTowth of my life. And yet it has so happened ! So far at least, 
t ham now entertain a deliberate and oft-revolved doubt ir lather, con- 
sidered merely in itself, the slave-trade be not a positive benefit to its 
supposed victims. Were the trade open and regulated in the way that 
emigrant vessels are, I should entertain no doubt on the subject." 

He then enters into a long, elaborate advocacy of slavery and the 
slave-trade, and with respect to making communications to him on the 
subject of the slave-trade, he says, page 141, " You shall not interfere 
in any mode, manner or degree with the execution of any law which 
it may have pleased my government to pass for the government of its 
citizens. So far as the principle of national independence is in my 
keeping, it shall not be invaded in any way, nor to any extent. Hen- 
ry Brougham should not do it were he here in proper person. Wm. 
Wilberforce should not do it could he rise from the dead to make the 
attempt. Think ye, then, it shall prosper when coming from stipendi- 
aries 1 No, not if war were to come of it." Then he goes on to de- 
precate the evils of war, and comes to the following flowing conclu- 
sion : " And yet, if 1 could read the book of destiny, that by nin^no- 
your communications into your teeth, 1 should prove the author of the 
longest war that ever desolated Christendom, there would be no falter- 
ing on my part ; no, not if 1 foresaw that in defence of my country, 
of that part of it 1 mean which would be chiefly exposed to assault' 
every matron and every maid would have to arise before I would sub- 
mit to your pretensions, or would meet it when persisted in, in any other 
tone than that defiance which I now hurl ; my daughter should make 
a bonfire of her books and her music, and bidding adieu to those pur- 
suits which are to qualify her for the womanly employment she has 
been taught to look forward to for her support, that of trainintr the 
minds and hearts of her young fellow-citizens of our magnificent Repub- 
lic in the same way that her paternal grandfather's countrywoman 
Maria Edgeworth, hastrained her own; — she should dedicate herself 
to her rifle, until to her eye and to her finger its cunning should be as 
obedient as it proved to the Tennessee man who drew the closest sight 
and touched the surest hair-spring trigger at New Orleans "_ V^L 
250. g 



t 



16 

But will it be believed that this man, in whose hands the slave-trade 
may be said to have been for the last two years, has the effrontery to 
talk of his "principles" being opposed to the slave-trade, and the folly 
to write about the repugnance of his " grandmother" to this vile traffic ; 
to speak to strangers of his condemning the trade in men " on princi- 
ple ;" of his dislike to it " in the abstract ;" of his concern forthj^m- 
possibility of wiping off the stain, and the stigma too of the victims w it, 
in the Tristian phraseology, at once, together, simultaneously and col- 
lectively. This is the slang of Mr. Trist and his associates in the Ha- 
vana. They talk of their principles, and make it their practice to 
go the whole hog for the " rights of man," in men duly imported under 
Mr. Trist's American-Portuguese Consular authority, and sold in the 
market at Havana. This kind of hypocrisy, with its facilities of 
speech and pliability of morals, Englishmen, too, have borrowed 
from Mr. Trist ; they rail like him at the theory and they fall into the 
practice of slavery ; they condemn the principle of man-stealing, and 
yet purchase the stolen men ; they profess a dislike to slavery in the 
abstract, and yet feel an extraordinary interest in its details, prospects 
and prosperity : they declare that as to the slave-trade, " quoad" mor- 
als, nothing can be worse; but "quoad" sugar, it can't be done 
without, and consequently nothing is more to be approved. In Mr. 
Trist's official situation, it certainly required a little courage to step 
forward in defence of an illegal trade, condemned by Spain, and 
declared by the laws of Great Britain and America a felony punishable 
with death. But to impugn the motives of those governments which 
had endeavored to suppress so atrocious a traffic, was a flight of fancy 
that for its boldness surpassed his previous efforts. In these days, to 
stand forth before the world in the bold character of an open apolo- 
gist and defender of the slave-trade, is certainly an arduous underta- 
kincr. There are few men out of the trade who would be content to 
participate in the obloquy attached in his own country to the man who 
avows himself the champion of such a cause. If respect for the office 
so unworthily filled by Mr. Trist, a regard for public decency and for 
the character of his country and its government were not sufficient 
motives to lay his official acts bare and naked before his coun- 
trymen, the cause he strikes at would still render it necessary to take 
it out of the power of his friends or patrons to prop up his reputation, 
and retain him in his present office. 

Even were he an honest man, he would yet be unfit for his appoint- 



17 

ment— An incapable, intractable, injudicious, overbearing person. 
He seems to have heard that Burke had spoken "Of the high and 
stubborn spirit of liberty," which predominated at the Revolution, and 
of this burly bearing of independence. Mr. Trist evidently thinks' that 
a rude demeanor, a supercilious carriage, an insolent tone, and an 
uncouth address, are manifest indications. When these are to be dis- 
played on paper, he deems it requisite to make amends for the absence 
of personal rudeness by giving to his language an offensive energy ; 
and he mistakes for strength a prolix pedantry that he looks upon as 
logic ; and a gunpowder character on most unnecessary occasions for 
excitement, which he verily believes to be indicative of the highest cour- 
age. In his brief communication of two hundred and seventy-six 
foolscap pages he enters on the subject not of the letter address- 
ed to him, but of the rise, progress, and results of the American 
Revolution, of the slave-trade as it existed some forty years ago in the 
British colonies, and of slavery itself, with all its advantages a°s it now 
exists in Cuba and of the cruelty of the conduct of Great Britain tow- 
ards the Spanish nation, in taking advantage of her weakness to 
extort treaties from her, so injurious to her slave-trade and insulting to 
the people of her colonies. In these two hundred and seventy pages 
of his Consular letter, he travels very nearly over the whole habitable 
globe. From the moment this " great writer " takes pen in hand the 
gods seem to have annihilated both time and space to make a 
Consul happy. He thinks nothing of crossing and re-crossing the 
Atlantic. He flies from the blessings of democracy in America, to 
the evils of monarchical government in Great Britain. He visits poor 
Ireland in quest of misery, and anon he luxuriates in Cuba, in slavery 
and riches. He touches at San Domingo and forthwith by a natural 
consequence of the increased facilities for exercising the locomotive 
organs, we find him, of all places in the world, at Exeter-Hall, trembling 
with patriotic rage, and exuding at every pore with the most virtu- 
ous indignation, -the days of yore, when slavery was in its English 
cradle in America, -the melancholy period when it was followed to 
the grave by a mournful band of Jamaica planters in 1834. The era 
past when the trade was the crime of England ; and the present time 
when her insidious efforts for its suppression are a calamity for Cuba ; 
at the thought of which, he, Mr. Trist, from the purest motives of gen! 
erosity and respect for the national independence of a weakened pow- 
er, feels called on to express his "indignation. " AH these dates in 
the admirable disorder of an indignant mind, are jumbled together, over 
o 



13 

the two hundred and seventy-six pages of official folio. Throughout 
this precious document, there is a painful effort at diplomatic effect, 
visible in every page ; a lawyer's-clerk-like endeavor to appear learned 
in the law ; a hard run upon technical terms, and a sufficient acquain- 
tance with the elementary parts ofBlackstone's Commentaries, to con- 
vey an idea of a petty-fogging attorney floundering in a legal corres- 
pondence ; affecting a forensic phraseology that quite throws such 
professional fustian and expletive redundance as » Any thing herein 
contained, to the contrary thereof, or in any wise notwithstanding"— 
aye ! altogether into the shade. In this specimen of the stunted pedan- 
try and infatuated ambition of a third rate dangler on official life, we 
perceive the insuperable folly of a man of his calibre, attempting to at- 
tain to the high honors of diplomatic rank ; profaning the name of Jef- 
ferson, and aping the tone and style of the philosopher of Monticello, 
the charge of whose memory he believes to have fallen on his shoul- 
ders, because the grand-daughter of the great man Jefferson happens 
to have become the wife of the " mighty small gentleman " Mr. N. P. 
Trist. This poor man dreaming of " doing " Jefferson indeed ! The 
efforts of that imitative animal (that is commonly restrained from 
pranks of mischief by a chain about his loins) to parodize humanity, 
are tolerable caricatures, compared with the ludicrous attempts of this 
official chimpanzee. But there are no limits to the ambitious exer- 
tions of Mr. Trist. The slave-trade is not enough to be a just and 
holy cause, which he is prepared to defend against the world in arms, 
he is a metallic currency advocate likewise. He talks incredible 
nonsense, and writes interminable absurdity in praise of hard dollars, 
which he looks upon as the very life and soul of the " Democratic 
principle, " and as for Banks, he becomes perfectly papyrophobious 
.when these pandemoniums of fictitious money are mentioned in his 
presence. 

To appreciate the gigantic intellect of Fox, it was said, that one 
" must measure the magnitude of his mind by parallels of latitude. " 
But how, I would be glad to know, are we to estimate the merits of 
Trist's epistolary correspondence ; — for here there are no parallels? 
We must mete them I presume by degress of longitude. But however 
we measure Mr. Trist, if we make his worth the standard, we find, on 
completing the disagreeable task, a political pigmy, elevated on a lofty 
pedestal of ridiculous pretensions, " diminished even by his eleva- 
tion. " It has been the lot of Mr. Trist to have been born and bred m 
the midst of the evils of which he is enamoured ; evils that could not 



19 

have been removed while " a recent people were still in the gristle, 
and had not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. " But the source 
of those evils in the progress of the people's growth, became better 
known, and by the wise men of the time were finally cut off; the 
cause was removed, but the effects remained for progressive wisdom 
and virtue to cope with, in future times. But here is a man who clings 
most pertinaciously not only to the evils, but to their cast-off cause, 
who advocates the interests of the slave-trade, at a period when every 
enlightened man in Christendom either feels or expresses his detesta- 
tion of them. Surely the poison of the unholy influence which this 
man has breathed so long, has continued about his whole career. A 
domineering passion for power without control, and wealth without 
industrious pursuits, has consecrated in his eyes the highest human in- 
justice that can be inflicted on mankind. This unholy passion has 
indeed grown with the gristle, and hardened with the bone of Mr. N. 
P. Trist ; and therefore is it that his moral vision labors under so ex- 
traordinary an obliquity, that he actually looks upon the odious traffic 
in human beings as a time-honored pursuit, that it becomes an ardent 
lover of his country to support and to defend. He looks upon the sys- 
tem of slavery in Cuba as involved in the trade, and he fights for both 
with the indiscriminate fury of an intoxicated partizan. He argues 
that slavery is favorable to liberty ; that it gives to the spirit of re- 
publicanism a fresh vigor, and a new robustness to its burly bearing. 
Such is Mr. Trist's understanding of " the stubborn spirit of liberty," 
that Burke so happily eulogized when the ancestors of Mr. Trist were 
struggling, not for the wages of slavery but for the prize of freedom. \ 
And he has the audacity to put himself forward not only as the cham- 
pion of this illegal trade, but as the representative of the opinions of 
the people of the United States with respect to it. The good people 
of America, however, I believe, sir, will feel little inclined to be repre- 
sented in any of their sentiments on any subject by Mr. N. P. Trist. 
It behooves them notwithstandingr to disabuse the Consul of his eo-recri- 
ous error; for if they allow him to presume on their patience, or to be 
still deceived himself by the silence of their contempt, his conduct will 
compromise the character of his government at least ; to disparage that 
of his countrymen it probably may not be in the power of his acts. 
This last official performance of his he regards as his chrf-d'oeuvre ; 
it has gained him " golden opinions from all sorts of people." Among 
the slave dealers of the Havana, from his Excellency Don Joaquim 
Gomez down to the " notorious Mr. Forcade. (and if there be any 



^ 



20 

lower depth in crime, down even to that lowest depth of infamy.) His 
popularity has surpassed his expectations, and it may in charity be 
thought, surpassed even his own desires. He is now reposing on his 
laurels ; the compendious epistle of two hundred and seventy-six pages 
has been duly read to the select circle of his friends. Vanity like his 
must be homaged with more than the thin vapor of adulatory in- 
cense ; the thick smoke of flattery must fume under the nostrils, before 
the dull organs of egotism are tickled by the breath of praise. His 
fame is established in the Havana; and if adverse circumstances men- 
ace his character at home, he has taken care, by an apparent espousal 
of the interests of the Southern states in his luminous epistle, to secure 
an asylum in the event of a recall, and to be able to fall back on their 
sympathies, with the claims of an advocate, and all the merits of a 
martyr in their cause. Thus making " the assurance doubly sure " 
of a successful struggle, or a secure retreat, he faces the enemies of 
his detestable principles with "the fretful smile of irritated self-suf- 
ficiency," and fights the battles of the slave-trade under the mask of 
national independence ; and brawls about his country when he is stab- 
bing at its laws and conniving at the infraction of one of them, the 
penalty of which is death. There is a species of deception peculiar 
perhaps to West-India politics, which has been already referred to, but 
which requires some further notice. It consists in bewildering those 
who are adverse to the views and principles of the party in question, 
by professing to hold opinions diametrically opposite to those on which 
they are known to act, and at variance with those which they are 
perhaps in the very act of supporting by their countenance or exam- 
ple. Of this talent for setting " springes to catch wood-cocks " in the 
colonies, let us take the habitual conduct of Mr. Trist for an example. 
All his feelings are engaged on the side of the trade in slaves. He 
advocates it by word of mouth and in official correspondence, strenu- 
ously, openly, and even indiscreetly. And yet if you ask him his sen- 
timents on the subject of this traffic, " no contraries hold more an- 
tipathies" than his opinions; he will tell you gravely he is opposed to 
it " in the abstract ; " nay, more, if a stranger is the person in com- 
munication with him, he will tell him "he is an abolitionist" in his 
principles. When he addresses the Commissioners, vituperating the 
efforts made for the suppression of the slave-trade, he has the boldness 
to speak of his feelings being opposed to this odious traffic ; and he 
tells them these feelings were instilled into his tender mind by his 
grandmother ; (poor old lady how fruitless were her lessons ;) and yet, 



21 

in a page or two more of the two hundred and seventy-six, he n^ 
knowledges that the only objection he sees to the trade, is in the 
stowage of the slaves in the Guineamen, now that the regulations are 
not under legal control. Elsewhere, he professes to be an ardent friend 
of liberty ; and shortly afterwards he expatiates on the blessings of sla- 
very and the especial benefit to Cuba arising from it. Anon, he de- 
clares that he is a sincere friend of the negroes ; and scarcely has he 
given vent to his philanthropical sentiments, ere he represents the 
whole people of Africa as monsters in the human form — cannibals — 
mar; u lerp, eternally cutting one another's throats; or victims offered 
up in hecatombs on the reeking altars of African superstition ; as 
wretches, in fine, whom it is a work of mercy to make slaves of, or to 
buy out of African slavery ; and to carry to such happy countries as 
Cuba, where they are sure to attain to an old age in the midst of peace 
and plenty. 

As his fervor increases in the cause of the injured dealers in flesh 
and blood, he has recourse to the Bowie knife ; he talks of putting the 
murderous weapon into every female hand in the United States, to resist 
any interference similar to that which the Commissioners attempted, 
in directing his attention to the employment of the American flag in 
slave-trade enterprises ; he speaks of his readiness to promote a war 
with Great Britain on such high grounds of offence, of war to the knife 
with England ; and he crowns the climax of patriotic phrenzy by 
threatening to take his daughter from the music-school to practise with 
her rifle in order to be prepared for the emergency. But, notwith- 
standing all these blood-thirsty indications, it must be highly consola- 
tory to the British government to know that Mr. Trist has declared 
in the same alarming letter, that he is naturally averse to war ; that 
there is nothing he would not do to avert its evils ; that the use of the 
Bowie knife is extremely reprehensible in his opinion ; and elsewhere, 
that Miss Trist is at the present time receiving her education in France, 
to qualify her for the occupation of a school-mistress in her native 
land. The mode of advertising for the scholars in an official letter, 
is a very novel one, and it is sincerely to be hoped that the intima- 
tion may produce the desired effect. The peaceful avocations of the 
young lady in the meantime may allay any apprehensions on the part 
of her Majesty's troops in the event of war ; and lest any juvenile 
officer, who " never set a squadron in the field ," should feel any un- 
easiness at the prospect of having to encounter Miss Trist in arms, 
and ready for the fray, he may be assured there is infinitely more peril 



22 

to be feared from a glance " shot from the deadly level " of her 
dark blue eye, than from any number of bullets from the rifle of this 
very amiable young lady. 

But these conflicting declarations of Mr. Trist, of peace and war, 
according to Senor Brabantio's notions : 

" The sentences to sugar or to gall, 
Being strong on both are equivocal, 
And words, mere words." 

And the worthy Consul illustrates the fact in his usual forcible man- 
ner, in another remarkable portion of his very remarkable epistle. 

He sets out by assuring the Commissioners that assassination is a 
crime he feels a great deal of repugnance at the perpetration of; 
indeed, he censures the practice very severely : but circumstances, he 
plainly informs these anti-slave functionaries, do arise, wh: n this wild 
justice is essential to national independence, as in a similar case of 
hostility to Spanish interests, when the knife-handle used to be found 
projecting from the breast of the French soldier, and the enemy was 
got rid, by this mode of mowing a path throu >;h the files of the inva- 
der. In plain English, the Consul General of the United States in the 
^^^^island of Cuba, points out a way of getting rid of the British Commis- 
sioners, and in a country like Cuba, where the knife-handle projects 
pretty frequently from dead men's breasts, to quote Mr. Trist ; the 
hint is intelligible enough ; it certainly will not have been his fault if 
" the war to the knife" work should be left untried. Elsewhere he 
make some delicate allusions to plain Henry Brougham, without the 
"Lord" of course, and Daniel O'Connell, with a variety of other 
names not fit for ears polite, which in numerous portions of the two hun- 
dred and seventy-six pages he has generously bestowed on the learned 
member for Dublin. But then, after pointing out the victims we have al- 
luded to, how gratifying must it be to the wives and children of the ob- 
jects of his vengeance to learn that the objects of their solicitude have 
nothing to apprehend from the knife or pistol of Mr. Trist himself; be- 
cause he specially states that assassination is repugnant to his feelings. 
His protestations of esteem and respect are in nowise less versatile than 
his declarations of war and recommendation of Bowie knives, rifles, &c. 
He protests with vehemence, he feels the greatest respect for the people 
of England ; and lo, and behold, no sooner has he protested, than he 
repents, and he describes them as the veriest dupes that can be found 
wasting their energies on a fanatical pursuit, and yielding themselves 
up to the guidance of miserable knaves and hypocrites. 

toFC. 



f 



23 

"Hie ct ubique, we must change the ground," wherever we follow 
the desultory Consul through the labyrinth of official rigmarole. He 
does the old country itself the honor of some very high-flown, compli- 
mentary remarks, in consideration of its having been fortunate enough 
to give birth to some relatives of his in olden times, an event, no doubt, 
very " important if true," and rendered still more remarkable by the 
strong probability there was that the world mi iht have remained in total 
ignorance of so curious a fact, as that of the grandmother of Mr. Trist 
having been actually born in England, had not the curious circum- 
stance of a slave ship, called the Venus, sailing from the Havana under 
the American flag, taking in her human cargo under the same banner, 
and landing the living freight under the colors of Portugal, on the 
coast of Cuba in the year 1839, having been brought under his notice 
by H. B. M. Commissioners, happily recalled the analogous circum- 
stance of his grandmother's birth, about a century before, in one of 
the most aristocratic counties of England. 

The compliment to the fortunate country that gave birth to his 
grandmother, is however no sooner paid, than the bewildering policy 
is immediately displayed in the strongest colors. The laws of this 
identical country are forthwith reprobated, in the finest off-hand style 
of Mr. N. P. Trist ; the monarchical government of the said country 
is mauled in a way that might cause the venerable shade of Tom 
Paine (if "the dread corpse" might indeed " revisit thus the glimpses 
of the moon) to smile benignantly on the efforts of the " imperious " 
Consul. The aristocracy of the land is reviled, moreover, in the choi- 
cest terms of Chartist eloquence ; the hackneyed declamation of our 
popular destructives, sounds like new invective from the mellifluous lips 
of the atrabilious gentleman; the Lords are handled with republican 
freedom, and their privileges attacked with all the zeal of the demo- 
cratic spirit let loose on the higher order of the state. 

In short, Mr. Trist on paper is " every thing by turns, and nothing 
long," except in committing himself, and there he is "lengthy" 
usque ad nauseam, and a little beyond those mawkish limits. 

When Mr. Trist shall have an opportunity afforded him of defend- 
ing his conduct in his own country, of showing how clear he hath been 
in his great office, there is one little item in " the soft impeachment" 
to which the attention of his countrymen has to be directed, and to 
which something more than a sweeping answer of general abuse may 
be required. The absorbing topics of national interest that engage 
the attention of the public mind both in England and in America, 



24 

leave little time and less inclination for subjects of such remote im- 
portance as those of the trade in slaves, and the efforts made for its 
suppression are thus comparatively unknown. It may be well there- 
^ fore to state, that with regard to the Spanish slave-trade, it ceased to 
be a legal traffic north of the line, by the royal cedula of the King of 
/ Spain, of the year 1817, and from the year J820 it totally ceased to be 
i a legal trade by the same ordinance, and by treaty of the same date be- 
'. tween the sovereigns of Spain and Great Britain, the terms of its sup- 
\^ pression were entirely agreed on. 

By these terms all negroes carried from Africa in Spanish vessels 
and captured by British cruisers, were declared to be free, and were 
handed over to the authorities of the Spanish Colonies, to which they 
were taken, to be treated in every respect as free persons destined to 
undergo a certain term of probation or apprenticeship, during which 
they were to be instructed in the Christian religion, and to be taught 
some trade by which they were to be enabled to earn their bread. 
And then to be to all intents and purposes free from slavery or servi- 
tude of any kind. It is a lamentable fact, that from the year 1820 to 
// 1830, of some fourteen or fifteen thousand of these unfortunate 
J , negroes called " emancipados," delivered over to the Spanish author- 
ities at Cuba, one individual only has obtained freedom, and that indi- 
vidual a negro, held by the Secretary of the Commission whom the 
Governor recently, on application, gave his permission to be carried 
off the island at whatever period his master should return to Europe. 

r These emancipados were regularly sold into slavery for terms of five, 
seven and ten years, by the late Captain General Tacon, for sums 
varying from seven to ten doubloons ; and the payments were made 
under the name of voluntary contributions to public works. Previ- 
ously to General Tacon's government they were sold less openly and 
scandalously, and for much smaller sums. When the term of the 
first sale was expired they were sold over again ; so that the unfortu- 
nate emancipados were infinitely worse off than the slaves of the 
island, because their lessees had not a life interest in their health and 
strength ; and the temporary interest they had in them made it essen- 
tial (as matters are viewed in Cuba) for the holders of the emanci- 
pados to get the greatest quantity of labor out of the unfortunate 
_^-- ' negroes, mocked with the name of freedom, in the shortest given 
^ space of time. Another great, evil which rendered the condition of 
the emancipados far worse than that of the slaves was, that they were 
debarred from the legal privilege of changing masters when ill treat- 



25 

ed, or of demanding to be sold to another for the price at which they 
were purchased by the original owner. Another grievance to which ^^~* 
they were subjected was, that of sending them into the interior on <i 
plantations, contrary to the express terms of the agreement, where 
the invariable practice was, in the event of a slave death on an estate, 
to report the emancipado dead, and to procure false certificates from 
the officiating clergy, whereby the emancipado slipped into the shoes 
of the dead slave. 

Now with respect to the fraud practised on the British government, 
perhaps some idea may be formed of its amount, and of the vexation 
it must have caused those whose efforts had been so long and anxious- 
ly directed to the amelioration of the condition of those victims of 
slave-trade avarice, by referring to its cost. Previously to the new 
treaty with Spain of June, 1835, the bounty accorded to the British 
captors was ten pounds a head. By the recent treaty it was reduced 
to five. The expense of the cruising squadron for the suppression of 
this traffic has been estimated by one of the Lords of the Admiralty at 
.£100.000 a year. The bare expense of the Commission at the 
Havana alone is about .£4.000 per annum. The amount paid to 
Spain by Great Britain in consideration of the interests hurt by the 
suppression of the trade in slaves, was £400.000. Now, if by the 
immensity of the expense incurred, we are to estimate the value set 
by the British government on the liberty of those captured by the 
British cruisers, and who ought to have been restored to liberty, some 
notion may be formed of the disappointment that must be felt at the 
complete frustration of the hopes entertained for the emancipation of 
these people ; and some idea may be had of the culpability of those 
who have practised the double fraud of robbing the nominally eman- 
cipated negro of his freedom, and of counteracting the benevolent in- 
tentions of the British government by such a course of chicanery and 
fraud. Mr. N. P. Trist stands charged with this guilt ; and if there 
were the shadow of a doubt of his culpability in this case, the charge 
would not have been brought forward. 

Mr. Trist obtained, like other foreign and native functionaries in 
favor with the reigning powers at the Havana, shortly after his arrival 
in Cuba, one of those emancipados for his domestic service, from the 
government, without the customary voluntary contribution in aid of 
the public ivories. The emancipados thus distributed, it was equally 
incumbent on the holders, as in all other cases, to prepare for free- 
dom by Christian instruction. Will it be believed in America that 
4 



26 

/the representative of that great Republic in the Island of Cuba, so re- 
cently as the month of September last, was still receiving from that 
unfortunate emancipado woman, after years of service, a paltry pit- 
tance of three reals a day from the sale of fruit, hawked about the 
Havana by this poor woman, robbed of her freedom, and the price of 
it thus daily pocketed by the Consul of the United States ! 

What answer Mr. Trist may condescend to give to this charge it is 
hard to say. The facts it is impossible for him to deny. The motives 
for his conduct it may be in the power of his ingenuity to explain to 
the satisfaction of himself and of his friends in Cuba, but elsewhere, 
a multitude of words, and above all, in America a multitude of frothy 
words " full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing," will be as 
" the idle wind" which matter-of-fact people " regard not." 

But to the general charge of connivance during the last two years, 
at the carrying on of the Spanish slave-trade under the Portuguese 
and American flags, by sanctioning in his Consular capacity the 
fraudulent transfer of the papers of vessels sailing under these colors, 
by permitting them to clear out on illegal voyages, by refusing to re- 
ceive communications from the Commissioners for the suppression of 
this traffic, of notorious instances of the abuse of the American flag, — 
and of the use of the Portuguese flag in connexion with this felonious 
traffic, — Mr. Trist has pleaded not guilty, and he grounds his defence 
on his interference in two cases, where certainly no benefit was de- 
rived from it, but wherein undoubtedly if his interference was oppor- 
tunely and judiciously made, he would be entitled to full credit for the 
honesty of his intention. Both of these cases are of occurrence within 
the last twelve months. In one case of a Spanish vessel fraudulently 
acquiring papers for slave-trade purposes at one of the Keys on the 
coast of Florida, the transfer, be it noted, not having place in the 
Havana, Mr. Trist, without any detriment to the interests of his con- 
sulate, was enabled to display a vigor even beyond the law, and no 
sooner does the vessel arrive in the Havana than he seizes her in this 
foreign port ; and of course his government is no sooner apprized of 
this illegal seizure, and of the complaints of the Spanish government, 
than the restitution of the vessel is ordered, and she is accordingly 
given up. 

The other case is that of the Venus, that landed her cargo under 
Portuguese colors, and took them in under the American flag, which 
bein<r reported to him by the Commissioners, he, having vented his in- 
dignation at the detection of the felony, entered on an investigation 



27 

of the facts alleged in the Commissioners' communication, at a period 
when no trace of the traffic in which this slave vessel had been en- 
gaged was any longer to be discovered, instead of instituting his in- 
quiries on the receipt of the communication, when the vessel had just, 
entered the port, and the proofs of the service on which the vessel 
had been employed were to be obtained, and the existence of the crew 
still on board her must have furnished ample evidence of the facts 
stated in that communication. But the Consul's prudence was not to 
be betrayed into any prompt proceedings of this kind, — and his 
choler in the meantime was to be expended on the Commissioners in 
the two hundred and seventy-six pages of his official, historical, politi- 
cal essay on all things, and some besides, too numerous to insert 
herein. 

So that having for two years the entire slave-trade of the island of 
Cuba, passing under the Portuguese and American flags — of which 
he of necessity must have been officially cognizant — at the lowest 
computation one hundred and fifty vessels in that term having been 
employed in the illegal traffic, he allows one hundred and forty-eight 
to pass through his official hands without the slightest molestation, 
and he interferes in two instances, once illegally, and in the other case 
untimely, and in both instances no good arises from his interference. 

Pictures of battles seldom excite feelings of compassion, but individ- 
ual portraitures of misfortune or distress, fail not to interest and move 
us. No matter on what authority, however high it may be, the general 
statement be made of Mr. Trist's official protection of the slave-trade 
during the last three years especially, 1 am fully aware a single case of 
his connivance and collusion accurately detailed, will make more im- 
pression than any general statement of his delinquences. I will take 
one for an example, not because it is the most obvious, as to the guilt 
of the Consul, — and even that is evident enough, — and sufficient were 
he arraigned on the felony, before a British jury, to place his liberty, if 
not his life in jeopardy, but because it is one of the most recent in- 
stances of his mis-deeds which has been brought before the eyes of 
his countrymen. 

Oneofthe Baltimore vessels, called the " Eagle," built for the slave- 
trade, in the month of March, 1838, went through the usual fraudu- 
lent process of transfer of ownership in the American Consulate at 
the Havana. It was evident that she was destined for the African 
man-trade to every one at the Havana engaged in commerce ; that the 
good ship " Eagle," was sold into this trade, was taken up by slave 



28 

dealers, and fitted out for the coast of Africa at the notorious place for 
the fitting out of such vessels, Casa-blanca at the Havana. These facts 
were notorious. Yet the fraudulent transfer takes place before the 
American Consul, without a suspicion being excited of her being en- 
gaged in an illegal traffic. Nay more, the fraudulent papers are not 
only attested by him in his Consular capacity, and all due official for- 
mality given to them, but the attesting signature of his Vice-Con- 
sul, Mr. Smith, is absolutely given to a fictitious " bill of sale," purpor- 
ting to be the transfer by sale of the brig Eagle from her Baltimore 
owners, as represented by the master in command, to one Littig, her 
new master ; and which attestation of the Vice-Consul, certifying as it 
intended to do, the legality of the transfer, and the presence and exe- 
cution of the deed of sale on the part of the fictitious purchaser Littig, 
in the presence of the said Vice-Consul, is solemnly contradicted by 
the man Littig himself, who acknowledges and signs voluntarily, the 
declaration, that he knows nothing whatever of the execution of the 
deed in question, purporting to be made in his name, and for his secu- 
rity ; but he supposes that the management of the fictitious sale was 
carried on at the office of his Consul, Mr. N. P. Trist. To spare you, 
my dear sir, any further comments on this fraudulent proceeding, I 
shall lay before you exact copies of the documents in question, begin- 
ning with the declaration of the captor, Lieut. Fitzgerald, of H. M. S. 
Buzzard, who having captured this identical slave vessel, the Eagle, 
on the coast of Africa, engaged in this illegal traffic under the Amer- 
ican flag, carried her to New York and delivered her over to the proper 
authorities of that place ; which authorities, fully satisfied that she was 
engaged in an illegal trade, and was owned at the Havana, delivered 
her over to the captor, who is now about to proceed with her to Ber- 
muda, so that the decision of the authorities at New York, grounded 
on the legal opinion of the Attorney General, Mr. Butler, as to her 
Spanish slave-ownership, is a tacit condemnation of the conduct of 
Mr. Trist, who permitted this vessel to prostitute the flag of his coun- 
try, and by his Vice-Consul's act assisted the culprits in carrying their 
fraud into execution. The following document is well worthy of your 
perusal ; it has this advantage, and likewise the papers connected with 
it, the authority of legal documents ; they are legally available here in 
the event of Mr. Trist being brought before a court of justice to an- 
swer for his conduct. The first paper is the solemn declaration of the 
captor of the " Eagle," and voluntarily subscribed by the nominal mas- 
ter and fictitious owner of her, Mr Joshua W. Littig, and which docu- 



29 

ment being no longer a matter of official privacy, there can be no im- 
propriety in presenting to you. 

" I, Lieutenant Charles Fitzgerald, commanding Her Britannic Ma- 
jesty's Brigantine Buzzard, hereby declare, that on this 12th day of 
March, 18M, being in Clarence Cove, Fernando Po, I detained the 
brigantine named the Eagle, commanded by Joshua Wells Littig, who 
declared himself to be a citizen of the United States ; and that he was 
not the bona-fide owner of said brigantine, as set forth in the bill of 
sale, found among her papers ; and that the said Brigantine and cargo 
are Spanish property , and that she was equipped in the port of Havana 
for the purpose of carrying on the slave-trade, in May of last year ; 
and that the two persons, (whose names as declared by them respec- 
tively) now on board the said brigantine, are part of the crew shipped 
on board at Havana at that time, that the other seamen composing her 
crew were landed at Lagos, in the Bight of Benin, by Commander 
Reeves of Her Britannic Majesty's sloop " Lily," when that officer 
detained the said brigantine " Eagle," while she was riding at anchor 
in the said Road of Lagos, on the 14th day of January, 1839: that 
Commander Reeves sent the said brigantine to Sierra Leone, for 
adjudication in the Court of Mixed Commission at that place, under 
the charge of Mr. George Sayer Boys, a mate in Her Majesty's Sloop, 
(at that time a passenger in the Lily, in order to join the vessel he had 
been appointed to) and a prize crew ; that the said court refused to 
take cognizance of the charge laid by Commander Reeves against the 
said brigantine " Eagle," and that thereupon Mr. George S. Boys, the 
prize-master, proceeded with her from Sierra Leone back to Lagos, 
and to this island, where on my boarding the said brigantine this day, 
he, the said Joshua Wells Littig, feeling that he could no longer dis- 
guise the true character of the said brigantine Eagle, frankly and vol- 
untarily declared to me in the presence of the said Mr. George Sayer 
Boys, mate, and other witnesses, that he surrendered her to me as 
Spanish property, both on account of Her Majesty's brigantine under 
my command being present, and because that he was boarded by the 
boats of the Buzzard in the Road of Lagos, and himself and papers 
strictly examined, on the night of the 31st of December 183S, when he 
the said Joshua Wells Littig, refused to acknowledge what he has now 
voluntarily stated to me. 

" The said Joshua Wells Littig also declares that he was engaged by 
Don Francisco Morales, at Havana, as a citizen of the United States, 
in order to cover the said Spanish brigantine Eagle with the flag of the 



30 

nation of which lie is a citizen, and that he hath no interest, nor 
expected interest in the said brigantine Eagle, farther than what his 
- might have amounted to at the termination of his expected 
voyage. 

" The said Joshua W. Littig also declares, that when first boarded by 
Her Majesty's brigantine Buzzard, and subsequently by Her Majesty's 
sloop Lily, he was engaged in taking in provisions for the expected 
cargo of slaves for the said brigantine Eagle ; and that when the slaves 
might have been ready for embarkation, he should have gone ashore 
at Lagos, and the Spanish flag would have been hoisted by the said 
brigantine. 

" The said Joshua Wells Littig further declares that the said bill of 
sale found amongst the said brigantine's papers was drawn out with- 
out his being at all a party to it ; and that he gave no consideration, 
money or other value, for the said brigantine being transferred or sold 
to him ; and that he supposes the whole was transacted in the United 
States' Consul's office at Havana, without his being privy to it. And 
that having sworn to nothing, he does not consider that he is at all a 
perjured man. 

" The said Joshua W. Littig further declares that an agreement was 
drawn up at Havana before the said brigantine Eagle left that port, 
between himself and a Don Francisco Morales, a Spaniard residing 
in Havana, (but believed to have come across to the coast of Africa 
in the said brigantine, and to be now on shore at Lagos) by which he, 
the said Joshua W. Littig, bound himself to obey the orders of the 
said Don Francisco Morales on board the Eagle, but which document 
is not now to be found amongst the papers of the said brigantine 
Eagle, although 1 found and read it when I examined that vessel's 
papers on the morning of the 1st of January, 1839. 

Given under my hand on board Her Britannic Majesty's brigantine 
Buzzard, in Clarence Cove, Island of Fernando Po, this 12th 
day of March, 1S39. 
Signed, 

CHARLES FITZGERALD, 

Lieutenant and Commander ." 

"In witness and listening to the truth of the above declarations, 
Joshua W. Littig has hereunto set his hand this 12th March, 1839. 
Signed, 

JOSHUA W. LITTIG." 



31 

" In my presence, 

WALKER SCOTT, Clerk in Charge." 

Names of the crew of the Eagle, 12th March, 1839. Jose Mijares, 
First Pilot; Benito Cajigar, Mayordomo. 

" Consulate of the United States, Havana. 
"I, N. P. Trist, consul of the United States, do hereby certify, that 
the document hereunto annexed is a true and correct copy of a letter 
of Attorney, granted by William G. Harrison and Walter Price, to 
Thomas I. Wingate, late master of the within named vessel. 

" In testimony whereof I hereunto set my hand and 

affix my seal of office at Havana this 10th day 

SEAL. of March, in the year of our Lord 163S, and of 

the Independence of the United States the 

sixty-second. 

N. P. TRIST." 

(Copy.) 
4 " Consulate of the United States, Havana. 

" I, N. P. Trist, Consul of the United States, do hereby certify, that 
on the day of the date hereof, before me, personally appeared Thomas 
I. Wingate, subscriber to the bill of sale of the brig Eagle, hereunto 
attached, and acknowledged the same to be his free act and deed. And 
I further certify that there is embodied in said bill of sale a correct copy 
of the original register of said brig. And that the original register is 
deposited at this consulate to be sent to the collector of the customs 
at Baltimore. 

" In testimony whereof I hereunto set my hand and 

affix my seal of office at Havana this 10th day 

SEAL. of March, in the year of our Lord 1838, and of 

the Independence of the United States the 

sixty-second. 

N. P. TRIST." 

And then follows a power of Attorney for the disposal of the brig 
" Eagle," of Baltimore, made by William G. Harrison, and Walter 
Price, both of the city of Baltimore, to Thomas I. Wingate, master, 
signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of John Gill, Notary Pub- 
lic, Baltimore, and likewise a " bill of sale" of the "Eagle" of Bal- 
timore, signed 1st of December, 1837, from T. I. Wingate, master, on 



32 

part of owners, to Joshua W. Littig, duly attested by J. A. Smith, and 
signed by Thomas I. Wingate. 

Such is the case of the brig " Eagle," one out of a multitude of 
similar cases of fraud, connivance and collusion, with a guilty partici- 
pation in which 1 plainly and distinctly charge Mr. N. P. Trist in his 
official capacity, in relation to his conduct towards the subjects of 
Portugal and America engaged in this traffic, and the uniform pro- 
tection and encouragement he has on all occasions afforded the inter- 
ests of these persons. 

If Mr. Trist has been dragged before the bar of public opinion in 
America to answer for his conduct in Cuba with respect to the en- 
couragement he is charged with giving to the slave-trade, private 
pique or personal ill-will has no share in the proceedings against his 
official conduct If he has been misrepresented, a fair opportunity is 
here afforded him of meeting the charges brought against him. But 
if the truth and nothing but the truth has been told of his delinquen- 
cies, the painful task of unmasking them will not have been in vain. 
It would be a misprision of treason against truth and justice, in one 
who knew them, to have allowed the friends and allies of the slave 
traders of Cuba the power to palliate his conduct. 

That his sentiments on the various subjects referred to in these 
pages have not been exaggerated or mis-stated, I need but refer to the 
specimens already cited, of his ordinary opinions, threats, denuncia- 
tions, eulogiums of the slave-trade, and advocacy of its interests, taken 
verbatim from his two hundred and seventy -six pages officially ad- 
dressed to the Commissioners ; and whether the perusal of them 
render it more a question of the sanity of his mental powers than one 
of the soundness of his moral principles, whether his connivance at 
the slave trade is less the result of corrupt motives than of perverted 
feelings, (and I lean to the opinion that to the latter his misdeeds are 
mainly to be attributed,) one thing is evident, that the interests of hu- 
manity, as well as those of the people of America, are badly repre- 
sented by Mr. N. P. Trist in the Island of Cuba. 



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